1. Field of the Invention
This application pertains generally to dental hygiene and more particularly to an apparatus for flossing teeth.
2. Description of the Background Art
Dental flossing is an often unpleasant but necessary routine for good oral hygiene. The conventional method for flossing teeth typically involves grasping opposite ends of a length of dental floss with each hand, and manually manipulating the floss back and forth between the teeth. Anyone who has performed this arduous, but necessary, task is well aware that the nature of dental floss inherently makes it difficult to securely grasp and tautly hold a tensioned strand while maneuvering and manipulating the suspended section between all the teeth in an effort to floss. The smoothness of the floss, in addition to the saliva, prevents the fingers and hand from getting a secure grip, and the ends of the floss is usually wrapped around the fingers to maintain tautness. Those who have flossed in this conventional manner are aware that a tightly wrapped finger is uncomfortable, if not downright painful. Such inconvenience and difficulties spurred the development of various means to hold the dental floss while flossing between the teeth.
One such means is a mechanical dental floss holder of the type which typically suspends a section of dental floss tautly across a pair of prongs whereby the suspended section of floss is used to floss between teeth. The prongs are attached to a handle, and the suspended floss section is supplied from a spool or roll of dental floss attached in some manner onto the flosser apparatus, thus providing a continuous supply until the entire roll or spool is exhausted.
Another such means is to attach stub sections or gripper handles at both ends of a short section of dental floss so that the gripper handles provide a finger grip on the piece of floss to facilitate flossing. This is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,892, which is incorporated herein by reference.